August 28, 2008

Destin bound but...

Gustav might be coming. What do we do? Well, we are still going with the HOPE he won't come there. If he does I guess we will be coming back home and will not have a vacation this year. :(

August 22, 2008

Coupons

I have re-entered the world of couponing but this time on a whole new level. I used to clip coupons and I would save $2-$3 and the most I ever saved was $10 which I thought was great. I had my very small coupon organizer which I bought at an office supply store. I thought that was great.

Now, I have enetered a whole new world of couponing. I have started the Grocery Game which basically matches up sales with the weekly coupons. Each week you can get FREE items plus reduced items. I have completed one week thus far and my Kroger total was $71.00. After my Kroger plus card savings combined with my coupons my total was around $35.00. I am going to give it 12 weeks and if I continue with the same savings then I have found a new way to shop.

Part of the game includes cutting all coupons out of the sunday paper. I have been doing this since mid July and I now have massive amounts of coupons that needed to get organized. After finding ideas on frugal blogs I came up with one that I think will work for me. Here it is:

1. I chose a very lightweight binder made of thin plastic. I chose pink to make it more attractive. I then added an attractive simple cover page.
2. The first page I included was a pencil pouch. I will use this to store pencil and paper for my grocery list. I also have my rain checks as well as coupons I will be using for the shopping trip. I will still take the binder in because you never know when you might need another coupon.3. I used trading card holders to organize my coupons in by catergories. I started with food first and tried to create specific catergories.4. I followed the food section with toletries and household cleaners.

5. After these sections I added regular page protectors for restaurants, clothing, and household items such as Bed Bath and Beyond.
6. The last page is a place to store the weekly sale ads.
My grocery shopping day will be Monday or Tuesday. I will be posting my results.

August 18, 2008

PET Clean!

The questionable node has decreased. This means my PET is clean!!!!

The Dancing Bear at the State Fair

Addison really loved dancing with the bears. She would have nothing to do with the bears though. She made sure she kept her distance. :)

August 15, 2008

Kentucky Wildlife

We enjoyed the afternoon at the Salato Wildlife Education Center. Addison enjoyed native animals as well as a small accident with a bird but she enjoyed it anyway.






Kentucky Good Times

We are currently in Kentucky visiting friends and family. Addison has had a great time seeing her Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa surprised her with a brand new shiny green wagon. She has loved it and now Grandpa has to pull her around most of the day. He also taught her how to wear her hat properly. :)

Tonight Phil and I are having a little date night and going to a Cincinnati Reds game. Tomorrow Addison will get to visit her Grandmother at the Kentucky State Fair.

In other health news. I had my PET scan Thursday and will find out the results Monday.



Splashin' Fun

Last Friday we went to Wild River Country Water Park. We had taken a children's group from church there and Addison had such a good time we decided to take her back.

The toddler area that Addison enjoyed while we were there.

She also enjoyed playing in the cooler as you can see in the above video. After this we left and she slept all the way home.

August 10, 2008

Bucket Head

Addison has discovered she can walk with a bucket on her head. :)




August 05, 2008

Excessive Heat Advisory...

that is what all of the local Little Rock news stations had been saying and then it happened. Saturday night the house temperature got no lower than 80 degrees. We slept with ceiling fans and no covers. It was bearable. We thought maybe we just needed freon.

Woke up Sunday morning Addison had what appeared to be bug bites including 1 with a blister. Addison did have the chicken pox vaccine but just to be safe I did not want her to spread germs to the church preschool area so we stayed home. Temperature in the house slowly rose I called Gatling's Heating and Air. Expected temperature for outside was 105 degrees and I will not even mention what the heat index was supposed to be.

The on call person came out and went to check for freon. I waited patiently in the house hoping it was just freon. On call person came back to door and let me have the bad news. The compressor was gone and we needed a new unit. He would call me 1st thing Monday morning.

I called Holiday Inn Express to make reservation because remember expected temp for Sunday was 105 degrees and I will not even mention what the heat index was supposed to be. After 2 lovely nights of staying at the Holiday Inn Express, swimming, relaxing, Addison falling into the pool head first, hotel fire alarm going off in the middle of the night we are now back home and very proud owners of a brand new, shiny air conditioning unit. Thank goodness for emergency funds. Addison adapted well to the hotel. She enjoyed swimming and most of all climbing on the luggage cart. She has become quite the little climber.